Alice in Miscria - Attack of the Nanaslugs! Chapter 3 - The Sacrifice

DISCLAIMER:This story includes tons of graphical language, excessive violence and a tiny bit erotic stuff too. All of this is purely fictional to make the characters act more realistic in both their attitude and behavior, nothing of it is intended to harm real life people and I asked for approval from the Admins/Moderators of this forum before I submitted this. If you're scared of blood and gore or feel very offended by cussing you should NOT read the story.

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DAY 3

Today I woke up and saw Agir standing in the doorway, looking at the ground with dim eyes. I don’t know where he has been, but as he is unable to fly he just took a walk around the village I guess.

"Alice, please bring me back home soon. When I saw Ace I remembered how important I am for my family and clan. I want to protect them like Ace protected this village. As my wing is still broken, I can't go there by myself. I miss them so much..please…please help me…"

I never thought he would ever say something like this and that he actually cares so much for others. He was slightly tearing up so I’m pretty sure he was serious about it. I thought he only is upon himself and ignores the ones he's standing on, pressing their face into the dirt, enjoying their pain. But there is so much in this part of the world which is different from what I know and I had many wrong first impressions so far.

"Okay, I'll get you there, but Richie must come with us because I don't know where to go. By the way why shall I go with you? Are you scared to go with Rich only or what?"

"That's not it…You saved my life and I wanted to thank you for that. I've been so rude to you. You're quite nice to be honest. I only heard negative things about humans. That they killed many Miscrits and ate them…but I guess they only did so to survive. They're not much different from us, and the fact that there are some which can live together with humans in peace and harmony proves that. They became part of the food chain. I'm sure my parents will praise you and your help, that's why I want to introduce you to them. They should get to know my savior."

"If you love them so much, why did you leave them?"

"I didn't tend to, I was sent away. Our clan was attacked by a bunch of grown up Nanaslugs and the adults tried to hold them back from our nest. We suffered great losses, once we were a flourishing, huge Miscrit tribe but now there is only a small clan left and I’m currently the only child because most of the female Freedoms were robbed by the Nanaslugs and killed before they could lay eggs, the youth got chased and eaten by them. It's horrible."

"So you ran and it looks like one of the Nanaslugs followed you which is the one we encountered later?"

"Exactly. My mother said I should run and escape them and look for other survivors who managed to get away. I'm sure she and dad are fine. My clan might be small, but we were always strong and could hold them back from the main nest in the past. I know they'll be all right so I flew as fast as I can and return when the hazard is over. I didn't recognize one of the Nanaslugs followed me. Usually I could smell them but the sandstorm made it really hard to track. It's my fault you're stuck here and that my wing is broken."

I hugged him. Seriously, I don't know why I did but I had an urge feeling to do it and whispered to him.

"Don't worry. It's ok."

He grabbed my arm with his wing, pulled his body closer to mine and trembled a bit. I sighed.

"Agir, why do you Miscrits can speak our language? I mean biologically I would say you're 90% based on regular animals we know from the rest of the…let me call it 'human' world.

"I don't really know that, maybe I'm just too —"

"….It's because they're living and dealing with humans for so long and partly adapted their habits" Richie came in and interrupted us. "We're living with them for generations. Of course not all species are able to speak, but many. In some cases only the high ranked members of their tribes will learn it. The Nanaslugs belong to those as well. Miscrits are really quick learns and can adapt incredibly fast. The species you see here now will probably look completely different in 100 years while normal animals need more than 20000 years to go through such a significant evolution. Other than animals, Miscrits can also devolve from a grown up form back into the child stage. This happens rarely on adult Miscrits only and usually under certain circumstances which vary on the species. The main reason for devolving is it doesn't fit into its environment and devolving makes it forget everything from its past life. It can also be done via training to order to get a maximum fighting potential out off a Miscrit. We call this 'Retraining'. We prefer not doing it because it can be very stressful for the Miscrit so you'll probably not encounter it, but it's out there. Evolving always has reasons too, normally any special occurrence can lead to it, no matter if it's positive or negative."

Okay, this guy has a big talent for making my speechless. He knew I needed a moment to swallow all that and then he went on.

"We are having good weather, so I decided to now go to the place at which your accident happened. I wanted to go there by yesterday, but the constant sandstorms make work pretty hard and dangerous. I guess my friend Brian, another of us rangers, headed there already. He doesn't need the buggy as he is riding his own Miscrit, an Acrimono. It's a very small Miscrit, a kind of cobra-raptor hybrid. It might look a little deceptive but it has a good soul."

I was scared to go back and revive the trauma I had after this. The place still looked the same way I left it. A big black cube which was once my car, the ripped skeleton of the slug, just the blood was dried. The whole street was covered in this terrifying dark red, the green slime became dark green and hard like crystal. A black baldy guy wearing the same clothes as Richie was kneeling down to a big part of the corpses, injecting anything into it and filling some liquid into test tubes. The cobra-like Miscrit was standing next to him, it was indeed very small and wrapped around its long tongue on a single rib bone of the slug which it was holding in its hands, licking it like a Lollipop and making strange sounds, imagine you licking an ice very fast. Gosh, no dirty images please. Why does this always remind me of porn magazines?

"Telling from its size it was definitely a Tornadouse", Richie said. "Hey Brian, come over, Alice is here."

Brian was a tall man and he was quite muscular. He seemed to be heavy, I wondered how that tiny Miscrit could carry him. It must have some strong legs and an iron spine.

"So you're Alice. Nice to meet you, I'm Brian. I'm doing the southern patrol. I was out off the village for the past days to get to the next supermarket. Usually I'm the guy who does the shopping thanks to that dude right next to me. My friend Roger is easy to hide and he's able to carry a lot. Acrimono might be one of the tiniest last stages, but they're true powerhouses and can carry more than 10 times of their own weight on their back while running at very high speed for a long duration. I'm so glad we have him, without him things would be a lot more difficult."

"And how do you get the money to buy things?"

"Oh, that's the job of our third ranger, Jeff. He owns a small pub 25 miles away our village to the north side. He is not having many customers, but most of the few he has come regularly. He earns all the money we need. Most of the time he is sleeping at the pub as he is doing the northern patrol, Richie is doing the eastern one. That's why he is the one who found you. The western side is blocked by the canyon.

"There is one more aspect I need to mention." Richie interposed. "You need a house. I can't share my couch with you forever so I will call Jeff, he gonna help us building yours. It will probably take a few weeks until its finished so the earlier we start building the faster you'll have your own couch. Brian will get a Walkie-Talkie for you next time he goes to the supermarket and I'll ask the villagers for some furniture they don't need any more. I know you desperately want a mobile, but we cannot afford one and besides that I doubt you would even have any network here."

"Oh man, the mobile thing is bad but like I said I won't rob your couch so the house is just fine, it doesn't have to be pretty but it shouldn't be too small in case my friend visits me one day."

"Your friend?"

Brian just interfered to say goodbye. "I gathered together all the material I needed. I'll hand this over to the laboratory. Cya later, Rich. Alice, take care." And then he moved onward, riding his Miscrit which took the slug bone as a souvenir.

"Yes, my friend Julius. He is the guy I need to urgently call. When I left him in Sydney I promised to call him every once in a while. He is too worried about me if I don't do it. The problem is, he is handicapped by a muscle atrophy. If he tries to look up for me I fear he'll get into danger.

"I understand. But I cannot allow you to bring him here for now. If the public finds out about the Miscrits, they will surely try to exploit their powers and that would be a disaster. If you want to get back to him, you'll must find a way to get out off this place. If you go all alone you will probably be killed, and I can't give you the buggy as you wouldn't return it and I need it for my patrol and to stay in contact with Jeff's Pub."

"I know that I'm stuck here. And I actually don't want to get back for now."

"So why are we just wasting more time here? There is something else I wanted to show you."

We want back to the village, fully called ‚Sunfall Village‘ and shortly called ‚Sunfall‘. The sun isn’t really falling down on this place though. Rather lots of blood and it's raining corpses I feel. 90% of living beings here are either Miscrits or humans. I still saw a few regular animals but it really is a minority. Most Miscrits I’ve seen are way taller than normal animals. If Agir is standing on the ground right next to me, he goes to my knees in size. And I’m 1,70m (5,5ft) tall. Richie told me Miscrits only can live in this particular area. No one exactly knows why that is and why it’s here instead of the U.S. or France or elsewhere. I guess it has something to do with these magical powers, what else shall it be?

I was pretty sure Richie wanted me to show me that home protector, which they call Duckrust and she’s nicknamed Tessa. And I hit the bull's eye. On our way back Agir fell asleep in my arms. So I left him at Richie's home. We climbed up the hill to her cave. I expected her to be different, she had a dark head covered with rocks, a small duck beak and blazing orange eyes, her neck was covered with orange fur, she had 4 massive, rocky feet and light brown skin with tiny, flaming wings on her back. You can compare her size with the one of a larger cow, just more muscular. But somehow she looked quite friendly and tried to eat my T-Shirt after she snuffled at me. It was very pleasant to see so much drool sticking on my fav shirt. If she wouldn’t be so big and intimidating I had given her some beatings for that.

There was a smaller version of Tessa sitting on her back who was obviously Bill. He looks exactly like her except that he has no wings and his front legs are kinda maimed. He jumped off into Richie's arms, cuddling him and licking his face off. Gosh, I couldn’t hold myself back laughing when Bill finished salivating Richie’s face. His facial expression was just glorious. It was half grinning, half ‚why the hell did you do this?‘. Seriously, made my day.

We fed Tessa a bag of rice. She couldn't speak but she could understand what we were saying when Richie and I were having smalltalk while feeding her as she sometimes interrupted us with sounds. She was emptying the bag incredibly fast, she probably doesn't get a meal like this every day. I feel sorry for you, life seems to be very hard here.

"Alice, let me just get back home and clean my face. Can you please head to the farm and bring the Duocornius? We need to prepare the sacrifice for this sunset."

"Okay, but please don't wake Agir. I don't want him to see this."

I almost forgot about that. It seemed to be a happy day at which we could forget about all those terrible things at least for some time. It's hard to think of that the Miscrit I had to bind on the drinking trough outside will die in a few hours. So we finished the preparations and waited for the Nanaslugs to arrive at the big square, that's the place in the middle of the village. All houses and other buildings are built around it.

It became evening, the sun was about to disappear on the horizon, behind the mountains. The sky looked beautiful, a mixture of orange, pink and purple colors, it wasn't very cloudy and a few stars could be seen. All villagers are supposed to watch the scenario and were standing in a circle around the big square, Richie, Brian, me and the Miscrit in the middle. Richie said Jeff won't come as he works in his pub.

"Why is everyone here?" I asked.

Richie just stared at the ground saying nothing so Brian took over.

"It's also part of our contract that all of our villagers must watch this ceremony. Nanaslugs are good in remembering faces and if someone's missing they'll become angry. It's true that they can't see well but their smell is of the essence.  It's a good way of suppressing us even harder. Jeff was freed from this by the Alpha Nanaslug himself because he is working and the pub is quite far away from here as you know.

Suddenly a couple of shadows appeared at the sky and got closer until we saw them. It was a group of 4 Slimist, the 3rd stage of a Nanaslug, and 1 Tornadouse who was obviously Nana Banana. He was way bigger than the Tornadouse I have seen. I guess he was about 7 meters tall and smelled even worse. The banana-shaped scar on his forehead was clearly visible and his whole body was covered with smaller narbs. He crawled towards us 3 in the middle of the circle while the other 4 slugs stood aside. Then he started talking in a dark, but calm voice. He was mainly looking at me and crawled around us, investigating my body.

"What a pleasure to see a new face who is not a baby. What is your name?"

"I'm Alice."

"Alice. What a wonderful name. I guess you have heard from me already. I am the king of the Nanaslug tribe this village is having a contract with. This is your first sacrifice, pretty exiting, huh? Enjoy watching."

Yeah, my name is soooooo wonderful. But he is less of a prick than I thought. Still, his wannabe-friendly attitude somehow makes him look not trustworthy towards me. I guess he would break this 'contract' any time he like.

"Why are you doing all this? Humans are not your natural enemies, are they? So why are you attacking them?"

"We have our reasons my dear. I'll not give you any further information than that. I find it rather interesting how such a tasty piece of flesh got lost here."

"SO I'M JUST A 'TASTY PIECE OF FLESH' FOR YOU? I GOT HERE BECAUSE ONE OF YOUR MORONSLUGS THOUGHT IT MUST DEAL WITH MY CAR."

"Ahh, so that's how he died. He was pretty dumb anyways. Chased everything. People who never learn from their mistakes deserve nothing but death."

"You say that about your own clan members? Pretty heartless."

"That's none of your business. Let us start. And remember, watch carefully how I devour its bones and squash its blood out off its venes. If you're no good girl, you gonna end up the same way. "

Out of all sudden he snapped the poor Miscrit standing right next to us, chewing it while its legs were protruding out off his mouth. The bone chopping could be well heard and some blood spattered on our clothes. Then the sound of a big swallow could be heard and he continued talking while looking directly in my eyes.

"I saw you closed your eyes for half of the show. Why that? It's not as scary as you think."

"Well, I guess I'm not used to it just yet you know."

"Ohh, you should or else I'll become a little angry next time. I also doubt you'll see another one as you're just a guest. But after all what you've seen, Richie will keep you here as a captive so you don't tell the public about our existence,  am I not right Mister Ranger?

I was looking over to him. He had his view focused on the ground, not saying a single word.

"Richie please don't tell me this is true. I would tell no one about this. Not even Julius. He would get a heart attack or he would think I became totally crazy and need a therapy more than ever."

"Yes, it is true". He looked up with sad eyes. "No one is allowed to know about the Miscrits other than the people who live here. You will not leave. If you leave..then….then…"

"…THEN THE CONTRACT SAYS WE ARE ALLOWED TO CATCH AND KILL YOU IF YOU'RE NOT ABLE TO GET AWAY FAST ENOUGH AHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!",  Nana Banana shouted.

Hold on for a second……..

"RICHIE, THAT'S NOT TRUE! TELL ME PLEASE THAT THIS. IS. NOT!!! TRUE!!!!!!"

"It is." And he remained quiet again.

Nana Banana was grinning it me. "I command everyone to get back into their houses, I want only only Richie and Alice to stay."

Everyone went back in and I absolutely had no good feeling about this. Nana Banana turned to Rich.

"Richie, let's have a deal. She wants to leave you no matter what so let's say no sacrifice for 3 months if I can have her body now. Just think about it. You would save the life of so many of your beloved Miscrits and you free the villagers from the pain to watch this event for so many times. You know how much your people hate the sacrifice and as the son of the oldest it is your responsibility to decide. Anyways, no one would ever find out about this. Isn't this a perfect offer?"

"RICH DON'T DO IT!!! Is that seriously what you want? Killing a human for a few of those little critters? Do you really want to become a murderer??? Hey, think about my own life man, I have a friend in Sydney I need to call and I'm still young and want to do lots of stuff and —"

"You can have her."

And before I could respond in the shocked state I fell, I already had Nana Banana's giant teeth in my shoulder. He threw me to the other 4 in the background and I landed in the dirt with my face. That..poison…I could….feel it.

"I'm filled up with that Duocornius, but my dear friends are pretty hungry. Moreover I don't like to kill beautiful girls like you. Go snap her, I'm out for now. If you get reborn as a Nanaslug I would marry you any time. Kiss ya."

"You mons—— …."

My view started to become blurry and I just felt something grasping my neck, ribs, legs and arms. Okay, now it's over, and the last thing before I die is to see a Nanaslug flying away with its slimy, stinky wings. That's at least what I thought. But somehow I have guardian angel with me since I entered this land.

I saw someone with a cowboy hat appearing, shooting the slugs with a gun, then whipping away their mouths off my skin and clothes, he placed down a few grenades and I just heard a loud sound of explosion before losing my sight.